The last thing, really the last thing, Ken wanted, was to have to tell his employer that he had failed. Mr. Kingston wasn't going to like what happened. And neither was the Council. They'd find out sooner or later, but not from him.

He ripped off the headset and stuffed it into the nearest garbage can.

As the final number concluded, Liz watched Fionna settle back to earth as lightly as a feather. Michael ran up to her and threw his arms around her. The two of them spun around the stage, laughing. The fringe of Fionna's dress flashed in the spotlights like electricity made physical. Voe Lockney launched into a fusillade of drumbeats that ended with a crash of cymbals. The sound died away. The Jumbotron stopped rocking. It was over. They'd survived.

The lights dimmed to the sound of wild applause and cheering. Green Fire took its curtain calls. The four members of the band stepped forward to take individual bows, and pointed out the guest musicians and singers for recognition. The applause went on and on.

"Encore! Encore! Encore!" the crowd began to chant.

The musicians looked at one another. Michael shook his head firmly. No. Instead the band waved and bowed to their fans, picking up flowers and small presents that came sailing onto the stage from the audience. Fionna, a huge bouquet of roses balanced on her arm, waved to the teeming crowd like a beauty contestant crowned queen. The band took one bow after another. The crowd didn't want them to leave.

The crew backstage cheered. They'd survived, too.

"It's all over," Nigel Peters said, with relief. He dropped his hand from her shoulder and flexed his arms.

"Not quite," Liz said, keeping her pose.

Peters looked at her in alarm. "What?"

"The question that must be answered immediately is what to do with all the raw, tainted power still swirling around the concert hall. The doors would be thrown open in a moment. We must rid ourselves of the gigantic overload to avoid letting it spill out into the streets of New Orleans."

Peters frowned. "How do you get rid of used power?"

A perfect solution had just occurred to her. Liz smiled, charmed at the simplicity of the answer.

"Why, we'll send it back to the givers, of course," she said. "A tradition of magic says that whatever one does comes back threefold. The concertgoers certainly deserved to have all the love they projected given back to them in triplicate." And whoever was behind poor Robbie being used as a tool deserved what was coming to them, too.

"Attention, please!" she called, as the group around her began to break away. "We're not quite through yet. We need to clear the air before anyone tries to leave the Superdome.

"Aww!" some of them complained.

"Can it!" Lloyd shouted. "Do what she says. Now."

They returned readily to their original positions. Liz looked around at all of them. They weren't really all that eager to give up their chance to have touched real magic. She was their leader in wonderworking. Every eye was on her.

"Now, everybody breathe in. Take in all of the power that has been raised here tonight that we've shared. Keep only what you need for the health and strength of everyone here. Then—breathe out. Push the rest of it back where it came from. Send it back. Send it all back. Ready? Inhale. Now, push!"

Liz thrust her arms out in front of her. All the others followed suit. The huge glut of energy went rushing away from them in a hurricane gale. Anything not nailed down swirled in the breeze, sheet music, programs, posters, cables, but the roadies and stagehands weren't afraid this time. They were a part of it. A grand tornado touched at the edges with green seemed to rise up from their nucleus, opened out to the very edges of the arena, and disappeared into the walls. The power was gone, back where it belonged. Liz let out a sigh of relief. The ordeal was over at last.

Everyone grinned at each other like idiots and slapped one another on the back or caught one another in energetic embraces. They all picked up Liz, passing her from one to the other for hugs.

"All right, people," Nigel Peters said, holding his arms up in the air. "Party time!"

"Yay!" the crew cheered.

The band came off stage, holding up weary hands in victory salutes. The roadies leaped forward to take instruments or microphones and hand out drinks as the group headed downstairs to their celebratory party. Liz felt triumphant. She'd succeeded, against the wildest odds, at the first really important assignment she'd ever been given. She fell in with the band and found herself beside Fionna.

"I've never been so tired in my life," Liz said.

"And ye didn't do a thing except stand back here and wave yer arms," Fionna complained. "We're the ones who did all the real work. Look at me! I had to sing all me numbers hangin' in the air like the week's washin'! And I didn't get to wear all my costumes!"

Chapter 18

"Ken Lewis was your problem all along," Liz told Nigel Peters the next morning in the private corner of the Mystic Bar as they waited for the rest of the company to come down for a belated brunch feast. "He'd been using Robbie as a power conduit to attack Fionna. All the things Fee told you about scratches appearing on her skin and unexpected knocks were true."

"I feel awful not believing Fee," Nigel said, running nervous fingers through his thinning hair. "It's just not the sort of thing you run into every day."

"You were right to be skeptical," Boo-Boo said, in his easy way. "It's not an everyday thing. But once the attacks started comin' in public, he didn't have much of a chance of escapin' notice."

"Lewis was trying things out, working toward the grand climax of this concert, when the main attack would come," Liz said, seriously. "I believe he really meant to kill Fionna. Robbie was unaware of his true intentions, or she wouldn't have gone along with it. She's not evil, she's just..."

"In love," Nigel said, sighing deeply. "I know. It's totally hopeless. Everyone can see it, poor kid, but Lloyd's got enough sense to stay where his bread's buttered."

"It's none of my business," Liz interrupted, "but there are real feelings between them. I was... rather in a position to know, last evening."

"I guess you were," Nigel said, a little uncomfortably. "Er, how long did Ken have Robbie, er..."

"Under his spell?" Boo asked, with a smile. "Most likely's been movin' in on her since he started workin' for you. Lots of your people thought he had it bad for the young lady. His interests in her were purely unaltruistic."

"How do we... uh," Nigel's voice dropped to a confidential undertone as he drew the agents aside for a moment, "how do we keep this from happening again? I gave Robbie her job back, but what you were nattering on about this Law of Contagion... She hasn't got anything that's catching, has she?"

Liz and Boo exchanged glances.

"Not precisely," Liz said. "But it won't happen again. We've seen to that."

And so they had. Boo-Boo had dragged an exhausted Liz to a little store in a dark street to get the materials they needed for a protective amulet to prevent her from being taken over by malign influences ever again. Both agents were impressed and worried by the different levels of spells they had to delve through when clearing her aura. Robbie was fairly well disenchanted herself, with Ken Lewis, Lloyd Preston, and men in general. For the time being. She might not be vulnerable to love for a while, but she was a vulnerable young woman.

"We have amulets for the entire company," Liz said, indicating a pile of Carnival bead necklaces. "Just to make certain such attacks cannot come through another conduit."